Friday 6 November 2015

Terrain is everything - 'Tis the season to pick up your trees

A few years ago I picked up a bag of model trees from Dobbies, our local garden centre [and craft shop]. They only have them in the run up to Christmas as they're for making your own Christmas scene with miniature revelers and holiday nik-naks. I've not seen them the last couple of years but it might have reurned to my local store, or yours should you know of a Dobbies nearby.  I've noticed online other garden centres do stock them also.


Now I haven't had chance to go this year but I'm hoping they're back in stock and just thought I'd remind folk about them. The set I got was 21 pieces from a company called Lemax for £13 which I think is good value. Clearly there's at least two that are just a bit too big, they're the same size as my 40k outpost that got bigger! but great line of sight blockers for a Trygon!


Of course they weren't going to fit with my table so I decided to paint them - undercoating them all in Red Oxide primer and then repainting them in shades of yellow.


And here's the finished result:


9 comments:

  1. Perfect for the new Tau allied advance cadre, which is all stealth/shrouded (forests). Don't see many forests on 40k tables, nice to see you've not abandoned the roots (pun intended) of the hobby back when all 40k battlefields were green!

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    1. And the Lictor Forest Brood! I mean the manufactorum Genestealers are always likely to get a ruin and/or building to set up in but woods are indeed quite scarce. This post from 2011 sums up my thoughts on the subject:

      http://40kaddict.blogspot.co.nz/2011/04/terrain-is-everything-so-whats-deal.html

      which when I subsequently discovered Lemax trees certainly resolved the issue to some extent. Additionaly there's always these I made in a couple of hours: http://40kaddict.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/terrain-is-everything-quick-and-dirty.html

      And if you've never checked out the alien plants of 18charlie then I recommend looking at this: http://40kaddict.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/support-your-local-blogger-18charliecom.html

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    2. I bought some Lemax trees after your recommendation but they aren't quite what I had in mind. At some point I intend to rebase them and try to improve the snowy finish but I think the green is too green if that makes sense. Doesn't look natural enough.

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    4. I see your point, they're pretty good for cheap 'cartoony' tree I guess realism is not the strong point. I actually like the mounded bases, incidentally you can pop the bottoms of the larger ones out and they're pretty much 60mm in diammeter so would be perfect for Dreadnought craters.

      However, I think you could could definitely supplement the snow a bit to make it more wintery, I know, spray it with Purity Seal! You could do the old PVA and baking soda, maybe throw on some of the snow flock I'm sure it would improve it's appearance and meet your expectations.

      Of course I bought them knowing that the original state of the trees would be covered. I had in my mind the end point so I overlooked the initial conditions so apologies if my excitement and recommendation 'sold you a pup' ;)

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  2. I wanted something more like: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gHXvCc7-uOM/UsnmBuOoinI/AAAAAAAAA44/oi4B2xsPhLY/s1600/Trees01.jpg

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    1. Much more festive, I can see what you were hoping for. Yes, the snow is a bit measly on the LEMAX trees, but I'm sure you could add to it. I can also see that the bases can be cool flat but I'd still keep some mounded for variety, or at the least if rebase the lot you've at least got some scatter terrain to build some snow drifts out of for some difficult terrain. See, always thinking!

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  3. I am a big fan of re-purposing fish tank accessories for terrain and the trees are often "too green". I do a quick spray over them with the airbrush or Army Painter Angel Green spray to knock it back a bit and they look a lot better.

    I love your work Dave: "I bought these cool trees... and I painted them RED." :-)

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  4. Looking very good. I actually saw some similar trees being sold here in Norway at a store called Sostrene Grene. Thanks to this post I think I will go and get me some to use for my wargaming.

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